Category - media

There are now just under two weeks to go for entrants for the first Jan Fairley Award, sponsored by the the National Union of Journalists and supported by The Scotsman newspaper. The deadline is midnight on Sunday 30th November 2014.

Disabled and sick people's experience, views and expertise is frequently filtered out of skewed debates and discussions about welfare and benefits. Here researcher, blogger and campaigner Sue Marsh explains what it's like to negotiate the media circus as a person living with a deeply debilitating condition, how the mainstream media fails those most impacted by government-driven cuts and stigma, and why "we must make our own media".

The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), a government department which appears to be increasingly and inappropriately fashioned by the the ideological welfare-cutting politics of secretary of state Iain Duncan Smith, displays some interesting communications priorities.

A new book from Christian Fuchs, 'Social Media: A Critical Introduction', discusses the relationship between social media and power structures in contemporary society. Simon Barrow examines the issues.

Prior to Channel Four’s ‘Benefits Street’ being aired last night (6 January 2014), the tabloid press had primed its readers, with plenty of articles such as this one from the Daily Express, laden with Iain Duncan Smith-style rhetoric: ‘broken Britain, scroungers, workshy, burden on society’, etcetera.